Jacobs caps a perfect FVC Valley season
It's one thing for a team to say that it wants to march through a Fox Valley Conference boys basketball season undefeated prior to its inception.
But it's another thing for a team to actually make due on its goal in the fervor it was done after Jacobs' 53-35 win over rival Dundee-Crown at the Eagles Nest Tuesday marked a perfect 10-0 mark in Fox Valley Conference Valley Division play.
Jacobs (21-5) used its customary signature: team play, defense, defense and defense. Three players, including Matt Bindi, Kenton Mack and Cam Krutwig scored in double figures and the 35 points the Chargers (6-19, 2-8) scored was the sixth time a Golden Eagles team held a conference opponent to 39 points or less, keeping in context its 38.8 points allowed in its last 13 games.
Only four other FVC foes scored above 40 to keep Jacobs at a 41.1 points allowed average in conference action and in fact, Bindi, who finished with 10 points, was personally responsible for an immediate 8-0 run all by himself out of the gate, spearheaded by 3 steals the stingy Eagles' defense corralled in the first 2:20 that helped Jacobs stay undefeated (13-0) in the 2015 calendar year.
"I think it's really important for us to get off to fast streaks and not be down right away," said Bindi, who finished with 3 steals and 2 rebounds. "I feel like once teams feel like they have a chance to beat us they'll have more enthusiasm if they start knocking in more shots. We like to stomp on teams right away, make them feel like they have no room to breathe. "
Essentially, who has any oxygen left in the FVC? The dominate win marks the second time since the 2007-2008 season that Jacobs breezed through the conference unscathed. Mack's 15 points led the way on two 3-pointers while Krutwig's 11 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks helped paced the team into its FVC crossover with Fox leader Prairie Ridge on Friday.
"I told the guys congratulations, it's a nice accomplishment, there's not a whole lot of teams that have gone through a conference season undefeated, especially when everybody was kind of expecting us to get through the league unheated," Jacobs coach Jimmy Roberts said in their season sweep of D-C. "Our kids expected it, we felt we could do it. It's another thing to get it done."
Jacobs also got it done on the glass, including 11 offensive rebounds as it owned a 22-17 rebounding advantage. Krutwig had 3 second chance putbacks and D-C's 19 turnovers led to 26 points.
"They're already good offensively and then if you give them more chances, it's going to be tough" said Chargers' coach Lance Huber, who saw Kiwi Seals lead D-C off the bench with 10 points. "The turnovers were bad, they killed us on the offensive glass, Krutwig was a man among boys and we had no answer for him on the glass."
On a few instances late in both the first and second quarters, the Chargers sliced into the Jacobs lead that reached its summit of 26 in the fourth. D-C made it a 3-point game on Jack Orndahl's left corner 3 as the first quarter expired and Caleb Parson's layup with one second left in the half coupled with Sam Buckley's drive to start the third had D-C within 5.
But Jacobs finished the third outscoring D-C 12-7, and used an 18-0 run bridging the fourth quarter to blow it wide open. Mack and Cory Boeckh sank 3s in the third and both Mack and Chrishawn Orange got to the hoop as Jacobs received at least a point or more from 10 different players and a bump from its second unit late to help achieve part 13 of a 14-part goal.
("We just talked) about how we wanted to start at the beginning of the year going 14-0 in our last 14 games," Bindi said."I guess we're pushing for that and playing our best basketball in March."